Saturday, October 2, 2010

Roughing it and Potty-training

Two-and-a-half weeks on the road, and still this does not seem like camping. Or weird or real. I keep waiting to feel like we're really roughing it, but I guess I have all the comforts of home just outdoors or a short walk away. For instance, showers and bathroom business take place in the bath house down the sidewalk from our site. It's so close I can walk there in the middle of the night, should the pee-pee mood strike. Teeth-brushing, hand-washing, dish- and clothes-washing, and any food-prepping requiring water are handled at the onsite water faucet. I know, you are probably wondering if the water is safe to drink. It is potable, and is cleaner than connecting to our camper and funnelling the water through a hose, first, and then through our holding tank. I still need to flush the tank...and even after I do I think I will bypass the hose-and-tank scenario whenever possible. We also have electricity onsite and have run a series of extension cords and power strips (safely, mind you) back to our private picnic area. There we have erected our canopy with mosquito-slowing mesh room, a lovely outdoor rug, and beach chairs. We have also "installed" a child-size princess table with matching chairs. Here, we eat, work, learn and spend time together as a family; it is our outdoor living and dining space.

Inside the camper is a fridge and inside the trailer (aka "truck-wagon", like chuckwagon but towed behind a truck) is a large cooler used as overflow from the fridge. So far, we have kept everything but the milk cool enough. We just have to buy in smaller packages so the milk can be stored in the fridge. We do have a stove that has been great for boiling water for coffee, making pasta or rice, and warming up leftover chili. Our air conditioner blows ice cold but I'm not sure if the furnace works. Or how it works, really. Hope we don't have to use it, anyway. We have an HD TV mounted on the side of the truckwagon and a small CD player/radio connected to the power strip. Laptops may be recharged via power strip or 12V, or connected directly to the generator. The generator is totally unnecessary when camping in a park setting, however.

In the evenings after Sage has gone to bed we light a lantern and hang it from the frame of the canopy. The lovely warm glow creates a perfectly romantic setting...I guess aside from having much privacy we have all the essentials of a home...

Potty-training has gone fairly well, considering Sage's potty turns up in a different place every break. During the day it's usually in the "tent" so she can quickly reach it during meals or playtime. At night, when we go to bed, we bring the potty into the camper. Yes, our teeny camper. Oh, and by the way, the official inside living space is 65 square feet, a whopping 15 feet larger than I initially thought. Wow, that's some high living, eh? Tomorrow we leave for Central Texas. Sage has had several "accidents" today, so she must be anxious about leaving this place that she has grown so fond of. Every day she plays with Hackberry Emperor and Tawny Emperor butterflies, and weaves them in as characters in stories she makes up. She must be feeling like she's leaving friends. That is something I need to consider carefully to help her better adapt to this journey.

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about me

My true path has led me to colorful places and through deeply profound experiences. In 2001 my husband and I began NativeDave.com, a sustainable landscape design company that focuses on native plants for the purposes of conserving, preserving, restoring, and celebrating Nature. That journey has been incredibly rewarding. While David will continue his work in landscape design, my path is taking me in a new direction. My focus will be on sustainable living, including personal health and fitness, home management, homeschooling, small-scale food production, alternative energy, and more crunchy green stuff. My life is guided by love, a penchant for simplicity, and a robust appetite for meaningful moments. In some small part, each day I do something to make the planet a better place.